A Lover's Gift / From Her To Him

Sibelius: Piano Music

Britten: War Requiem

Cancionero Musical de Palacio: Music of the Spanish Court

Beethoven: Bagatelles and Dances, Vol. 2

BRAHMS: String Quintets Nos. 1 and 2

Includes magnificat(s) by Orazio Benevoli. Ensemble: Le Concert spirituel. Conductor: Hervé Niquet.

GEOFFROY: Music for Choir and Organ

One of the least explored and potentially most rewarding musical niches of the Classical period is the extensive repertoire of wind ensemble music composed by innumerable fine composers, most of them Czech. Franz Krommer is certainly one of the most successful of this great school. His wind Partitas are genuine symphonies scored for pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns, with a double bass or contrabassoon added to firm up the bass line. Actually, Op. 45 No. 2 tosses a trumpet into the mix as well, while the early Partita in E-flat (which may or may not be by Krommer) is a true double horn concerto with wind accompaniment. Krommer's music, like Haydn's, artfully mixes formal ingenuity with folk-influenced melodies (particularly in the minuets and finales), and demonstrates the exceptionally high standard of performance typical of contemporary players, horns in particular. The Michael Thompson Wind Ensemble has been working its way through this repertoire in a series of excellent Naxos recordings, of which this is certainly one. The players attack each piece with enthusiasm and the superb technique necessary to sustain such lengthy and complex music as the First Partita's second movement Romance. Charm, wit, sophistication--Krommer has all of these qualities, and these performances will delight you.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This disc conveniently gathers all the published piano music of the Second Viennese School. It illuminates the profound differences between the three composers, something further clarified by the music's presentation in chronological order. Berg's terse, haunted piano sonata harnesses his emotionally charged music to a strict if not immediately perceptible form. For Schoenberg the piano was a laboratory where each new development of his musical language first appeared, from free atonality to the twelve-tone system, from pseudo-baroque forms to the final freedom of his late works. The Webern Variations couple the composer's late romantic ardor with his formal experiments that would bear such controversial fruit in the decades after the war. This performance incorporates recent research that suggests that Webern expected a much more romantic style of playing than is usually heard in his music. The effect is hallucinatory.
Peter Hill, whose Messiaen series on Unicorn-Kanchana is a milestone of contemporary piano recording, offers ardent, romantic performances of this sometimes forbidding music. His Schoenberg resembles Paul Jacobs' beautiful readings and his inclusion of the Berg and Webern at a bargain price make this an indispensable release.

Fauré: Barcarolles (Complete) / Ballade, Op. 19

JANACEK: Violin Sonata / Capriccio / Romance / Dumka

Beethoven: Bagatelles and Dances, Vol. 1

Alain: Organ Works, Vol. 1

Glazunov, A.K.: Orchestral Works, Vol. 10 - Suite Caracteris